E Co. bites: What are the challenges you usually experience after a project receives funding?

6 September 2019, climate finance, Category: All insights, E Co. bites

Watch our bite-sized and easily digestible video series, sharing our insights and experiences of designing low-carbon, climate-resilient development projects, across the globe. We discuss the who, where, what, why and hows behind successfully obtaining funding from major donors, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Transcript 

Speaker: Mel Phadtare

Question: What are the challenges you usually experience after a project receives funding?

In our experience, while every phase is important, it is at the project inception that there are some critical challenges. Unfortunately, in many cases there are long delays between the project formulation work which we do and the start of the project.

This comes about because of the many reasons, including slow funder decision making processes, negotiations of legal agreements and the need for high-level sign off. This can take months and even up to a year or sometimes even longer. The result of this is that the original staff involved in design may no longer be involved and, of course, baseline conditions may have changed, for example, government priorities or the economic situation may have changed. Also at the project inception, new staff may be hired that don’t have the insight into the original project design.

To address this gap we at E Co. are always on hand to help with the transition process. We are happy to discuss the design with the project staff at any time. We see this as an integral part of the support we offer even after the end of contractual commitment. If necessary, we can also be engaged to help kick-off activities, validation, and adjustment of project stratify development in terms of reference and similar activities if these are needed.

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